First, the ten winners of the Creed Love in Black samples are:
- CC
- annie
- Matts
- Jennifer O
- Maura
- RHM
- Kim
- Janet in California
- susi
- Anne
Just click on the Contact Us button over there and send me your address. Congrats!
So… vanilla. yeah. Love it or hate it, there are a couple of new’ish ones out there that people seem to be loving, so let’s see why!
Montale Vanille Extasy has notes of ylang-ylang from Comoro Islands, Egyptian jasmine, apricot, sandalwood, mahogany, bensoin, vanilla. This is very much a sweet floral vanilla, like a cross between Montale’s Soleil di Capri and Indult Tihota, landing closer to Soleil, without that much of a gourmand feel to it. I think that’s what makes me a little road-weary about Montales, the new one always seems to be another variation on a prior one. As a scent, it’s nicely done, fitting in with the others in the line. I like it, but it’s not me so much, a little too sweet and not enough vanilla, which is what I expected with the name it has.
Micallef Vanille Aoud has notes of bergamot, ylang-ylang, prune, oud, caramel, musk, vanilla, benzoin. A similar set of notes, with some variation, to the Montale Vanille Extasy. This works much better from the start, with a healthy benzoin blast in the open, some nice gourmandy notes blending well with the oud and vanilla. The oud is not too bitter, but has enough bite to keep this from a frothy sugar mess. This is a much more interesting rendition, paying a great salute to the vanilla and other gourmand notes, but holding a great tension with the oud, musk and benzoin. Micallef is one of those lines that I’m always just subtly impressed by. They do nice, incredibly wearable scents with some interesting slants.
So if you had to pick one vanilla fragrance to wear all the time, which one would it be?
Okay, I’m dashing in today. Training teachers, writing curriculum material, implementing improvement plans - I have no room left for work folks! I’m all about the smells and the plants, people. Wish my bank would understand. So work it is, and hence the brief(ish) post today.
I’m a positive person. Us Brits don’t always do positive in quite the same way as our more upbeat American cousins do, but I’m pretty much at the ‘Rah! Rah! Yay!’ end of the spectrum really. And I normally have only good things to say about scents. So, for a little bit of variety, and seeing as I have next to nothing to say about new scents right now (secret - I haven’t been wearing much, as so busy with the gardening stuff - such a Brit stereotype), I thought I might slam into a few I truly hate.
I don’t hate many things in life really - I’m you’re live and let live sort. Whilst not exactly laissez-faire, I always try to see where something’s coming from and give it some room for manoeuvre. Hating’s a little too strong for me, most days. Hey, I might not like it, but someone surely does. And that’s good enough. And hate - it’s such bad karma, dude. I’d rather the positive than the negative hyperbole, any day.
However, there are a few things that even for placid ole me bring out the nasty side. And I’m not talking designer scents either - I can’t really think of any that I feel strongly enough about to hate… I’m talking my niche nasties, my leprous disasters of limited distribution, my … you get the picture. I’m not even talking those things you love to sniff because their repulsiveness fascinates you. I’m talking those things that make you shudder, scents that are abject horror, perfumes to make you puke, fragrances that are flagrant abuses of olfaction.
And here they are. Apologies if you love these; I don’t (secret - I don’t know how anyone can. Please explain). You can tell me your hates straight after. We can still be friends.
Lorenzo Villoresi Incensi. Quite simply vile. Bitter, cold, messy, an abhorrent cacophony of notes. I never knew an incense could be worse than Messe de Minuit, but here it is. I love cinnamon, I enjoy incense, but here this foul brew conjures up a Satanic anti-sacrament in which I’d rather be eviscerated than have to sniff it again. Knocks his Piper Nigrum - top notes might be great but wait for the murky sludge of the drydown - into the shade in terms of awfulness.
Montale Musk to Musk. Delightful commenter grizzlesnort sent me a decant of this, and I pray I won’t offend you too much, J, by saying ‘thank you for the reminder’. I mean thank you by the way - it’s good to have a baseline for what a terrible musk fragrance can smell like. I had a small sample of this a while back that I seemed to lose. This decant reminded me of how exceptionally powerful a scent-related shudder can be. Oh my. It’s aldehydic and white musky, with a dank fleshrottiness underneath all that ‘pwitty pwitty’. It’s putrescence purtied up. Like a well-rotted corpse in lipstick and rouge.
Maitre Parfumeur et Gantier Jardin du Nil. Basenotes is down right now so I can’t access the reviews. But they’re worth reading. The MPetG site says of this bejewelled bilgebroth, “Returning from a voyage to Egypt, after having discovered mint and geranium rosa crops in the Nile Delta, Maître Parfumeur et Gantier created Jardin du Nil. The refinement of geranium, rose and jasmine is added to a fresh top note of hesperides, on amber, patchouli and vetiver warm notes.’ Guys, you should’ve just stuck some flowers in old water for a few days and sniffed the results. Unwearable. Unless you’re decaying brown silt sitting on a pond liner.
Over to you!
Finger image from ezthemes.com.
